We Live In a Permissionless Era. Here’s How New Creators Can Take Advantage

You need patience, persistence and a sprinkle of luck to be a successful creator

Have you ever heard of the TikToker who makes six figures a day by teaching Excel?

What about the silent TikTok millionaire? Every day, we hear about these successful anomalies that we wonder how they are making so much money doing that. Thanks to the creator economy, it's now possible to turn your hobbies into a profitable business by simply posting content.

We've entered a Permissionless Era.

It's an unprecedented time where you no longer need an agency, a middleman or someone who'll say, we can't do that until we have more experience, portfolio, education, and training.

On the Internet, you don't have to ask for permission to start, let alone to make thousands of dollars.

While overnight successes are pretty rare, you can still take advantage of this fact and participate in the booming creator economy. When you do, you create opportunities of becoming a permissionless creator and eventually:

• Start a business you've always thought about
• Change your career path if you hate your current one
• Doing something bigger than yourself and helping others along the way

Here's how to take advantage of being a permissionless creator.

Be Annoyingly Good at Whatever You Choose To Do

Sometimes, I become jealous of specific creators.

After self-introspection, I realize I'm jealous of the creators who are close to my age, gender, and even my hair colour. There's a saying, "life is a mirror." And I learned that jealous is a mirror or a reflection of your true desire. So when I compare myself to people who are very similar to me, it means that deep in my heart, I have the potential to do what they're doing.

Through instead of motivation, it was showing up as envy or jealousy.

When I ask myself, "why am I so jealous of these people? What are they doing that I'm not?" The answer I found was this: they're annoyingly good at what they do. I say annoying because a part of me is jealous, but I can't deny that they're good, whether it's writing, publishing an eBook or a new online course.

It doesn't matter whether they have 100 fans and 100 haters.

The fact is, I consider them good, and I bet others do too. They're good at showing up. They're good at the skills they choose to do. They're good at helping others. They become so good that they get noticed with a splash of luck after months and years of purely showing up.

Don’t Ask For Permission, Ask For Feedback

You've heard of the saying, "don't ask for permission, ask for forgiveness."

Your audience decides what they like or dislike in the creator world. So don't ask for forgiveness for what you put out there. Instead, ask for feedback when you create and publish things.

But first, create things that give you joy, and then ask whether they liked it or not. When you ask people first, you let them have control over your creation. But remember, being a creator means you're the artist. Creating give you joy so you have to put your needs first.

You have to inspire yourself first and foremost.

The creator economy is a positive-sum game. That means when we help each other out, everyone wins. So help and give feedback to others. And then ask for feedback from others.

The best creators are the ones who ask people,

• "What do you want to hear from me?"
• "How did you find this (insert product)?"
• "How else can I help you?"

None of the creators you see online ask themselves, "should I post this today? What if it's not good? What if people judge me?".

They just do.

Then,  they let the audience decide through likes, comments, DMs or reshares.
Those are metrics you need to be interpreting in a healthy way. So publish consistently and treat each piece that you publish as a testing ground. Don't get attached to any of your pieces of content.

Once you hit the publish button, let the content do its thing, and when good things happen because of it, take a moment to be grateful.

Invest in Small Bets, Do Things by Elimination

You've heard this advice before, "be good at one thing and do that one thing online."
I say, figure out what you love to do and create a business out of it no matter how small the possible income is. In my first year as a creator, I made 10k+ trying out different things. I tried coaching, paid community memberships, freelancing, and donations.

All of these require a minimum of 30 days to launch.

Once you pick one, stick to it for at least three months. Right now, my favourite way to make money is freelancing. I've been doing it for 6 months.

I wouldn't have known that if I had chosen one thing from the beginning.

So instead of figuring out the next best thing you want to do, invest in small bets for a specific period of time. And once you find 1 - 2 things you love, stick to those for a long time. Because only then you're going to blossom in the thing you choose to do.

It's easier to know what you don't want to do, so do things by elimination.

Final Thoughts

Being a creator will be one of the best decisions you can make.

Even if you don't make tons of money initially, you'll learn different things that you wouldn't have learned by sticking to a regular job. You'll learn how to communicate, how to be creative, how to make money.

And you'll learn how to advocate for yourself.

You'll get to know the person you wish to become, and day by day, you'll be that person. There are so many advantages to a creator, and the best part is that you don't need anyone to tell you whether you can do it. You can just do it.

Eventually, the people who are meant to see your work will find it.